Just The Pits (Hetta Coffey Series)

by Schwartz, Jinx

  After a frustrating day of unrequited snoopery, and realizing I was in over my head, snoop-wise, I was elated I'd have Jan in my corner to help out in the future. She has a degree in mathematics, an MBA in accounting, is a PeopleSoft (Oracle's whizbang capitol management program) guru, and can ferret out accounting snafus where I wouldn't have a clue to even look. I know the construction/engineering bidness, but can barely balance my checkbook. Okay, I never balance my checkbook.

  For engineers, one would think being math savvy is second nature and it sort of is, but I don't like doing it. You would be surprised how many engineers feel the same way. If we are designing something that's one thing, but anything that smacks of simple subtraction and addition? Nah.

  I was somewhat surprised by my relief that Jan and Rosario were staying on for awhile. A bit of a loner, I've never really enjoyed being around people a lot, and especially in my living quarters. Given my druthers, I would have had my own house as a child. Next door to the parents, mind you, but separate. Maybe this getting near for...late thirties had something to do with it? Or maybe I just liked coming home to a home cooked meal. If I beat Po Thang to it.

  As I headed for the boat after securing Jan a place on the payroll, I thought I'd find an elated Jan, as she was back to working at something she loved instead of flipping tortillas at the whale camp. I had another think coming, for the Jan waiting for me was one I had never known: an insecure one.

  I barely made it into the main saloon when she began spouting angst and fury, all because of Chino's new assistant.

  After ten minutes of listening to her totally unfounded anxiety, I had had enough. "Oh, for crap's sake, Jan, you knew Chino was getting an assistant."

  "An assistant marine biologist. A doctor. Not a golderned centerfold."

  "I think you must be exaggerating."

  Rosario piped up. "Oh, no, she is not. Doctor Diane is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. She has the most amazing hair with these gold streaks, sexy eyes, and her figure—"

  I cut him off in order to save his life, as I caught sight of Jan reaching for my fish filleting kit. "Okay, Rosario, I think I've got the picture here."

  Not heeding my attempt at a warning, he whipped out the cell phone Jan had retrieved from his rental room and shoved it in my face. Jennifer Lopez peered at me from the screen. No, not Jennifer, because the actress doesn't have jade green eyes. And in the photo Rosario snapped early that day, those emerald orbs were trained, laser-like, on Doctor Brigido Chino Comacho Yee, who had a silly grin pasted on his face.

  "Well, crap."

  "Well crap, indeed Hetta," Jan growled. "I should have never let them drive off without me. What was I thinking? They will be together all day, every day, and half the night and it's your fault."

  "What? My fault?"

  "Well, you hired me and now Chino and that, that, doctor will be way too together while you have me slaving away over here."

  "They'll be counting whales and such," I reminded her. "Something you hate doing."

  "Yabbut, they are my whales to hate."

  "Gosh, why on earth would Chino be interested in someone else when you are so reasonable?"

  "You know what I mean."

  "I guess. Look, Chino is in love with you, in spite of your lousy attitude. He is a wonderful man, an honorable one, and someone who would never do anything nefarious."

  "Wanna bet? He stole your dog."

  "What?" I hadn't even had time to notice Po Thang was missing. "The dirty low down sonuvabitch!"

  Later, when Jan was taking a shower out of hearing range, I whispered to Rosario, "I'm almost afraid to ask, but just how old is this Doctor Bombshell? She looks fairly young in her photo, I mean for a doctor."

  As I said this I had a twinge of my own angst, as I'd heard it told that you know you're getting old when doctors start looking young.

  Rosario's answer gave me even more to worry about. "I think she is about twenty-six. My age."

  Yikes, no wonder Jan was in such a tizzy, what with her concerns of the age difference between herself and Chino.

  "And Hetta, Doctor Yee took your dog so he can check him for worms and any other health problems. He is, after all, a veterinarian as well as a marine biologist. I do not think he wishes to keep Po Thang."

  I'd had time to calm down over my missing mutt and when I thought it over, Po Thang was in good hands. "Truth is, I really don't need a dog. I'm gone all day and you and Jan won't be here for long to dogsit. I guess Camp Chino is actually a better place for him in the long run."

  "Perhaps." He cut his eyes toward my cabin, where Jan went to shower. "I think Jan is…confused. She says she doesn't want to work with Doctor Yee, but then she doesn't want him to have an assistant."

  "Oh, I think it is the type of assistant she's worried about. Did you learn anything else about Doctor Powell? Like, is she married or anything?"

  "She wore no ring." He blushed. "I sort of noticed."

  "Like you sort of noticed she's got more curves than Hell Hill?"

  "But she is not so beautiful as Jan," he said loyally.

  "You might want to mention that to Jan."

  To keep Jan's mind off possible hanky-panky afoot at Camp Chino, I had her download every single accounting number for the project, no matter whose it was. This was no small task, for we had subcontractors galore and they had their own purchase orders. I also wanted to look at any large outstanding invoices, maybe glean an anomaly somewhere.

  Luckily the numbering system was such that the string of numbers and letters actually meant something, once you get the hang of it. Or rather, Jan got the hang of it, because my pea brain only saw hieroglyphics. In what looked to me like a meaningless string of alphanumeric nonsense, Jan deciphered information. Under Jan's tutelage I slowly learned to recognize subcontractors, vendors, products, and the like, but it was still a pain.

  I was complaining about learning a new language—Accounting—when Rosario stepped in and wrote a translation program for me. Jan was more than impressed with how quickly he grasped not only the concept, but his ability to quickly put it all in plain English for me. He also acted as our project personnel guide, filling us in on who did what for whom. We made a good team, each of us possessing a particular knowledge or skill, and none of us with another damned thing to do.

  Things were looking much rosier until my office phone rang.

  "Hetta," Rosario whispered.

  "Ro—" I looked around to see if anyone was nearby my office. "Uh, hi there. What's up?"

  "Someone is on the boat."

  "Where's Jan?"

  "She went shopping."

  "Can you see who it is?"

  "No, when I heard someone walking around on the decks, I hid in my cabin. Can you turn on the cameras? Whoever it is is still here."

  "Okay, are all the hatches locked?"

  "Yes. And so is my cabin door."

  "Good. Standby." I pulled up my security system and activated all the cameras on the boat. At first I saw nothing, then a deck camera caught movement and rotated towards it. A man was walking along the starboard side, his back to the camera. It looked as though he was getting ready to leave the boat.

  "Rosario, make a noise. I need him to turn around."

  "What noise?"

  "I don't care. Whistle, yell, bang on the wall. Whatever."

  "Okay." Seconds later I heard a loud thud and the man whirled to face the camera.

  I almost fainted with fright as I stared into the ugly mug of an old arch enemy, one who had vowed to get even with me if it was the last thing he did.

  "Hetta?"

  I couldn't speak, I was in such shock.

  "Hetta?"

  I drew a deep breath. "I'm here. Stay put. No more noise. If he tries to break in, I'll set off the alarm. That should scare him off, pronto."

  I watched, a shaky finger on the alarm key, as the creepy lowlife finally shrugged and stepped off the boat.

  "I think he's gone. Pee
k out from the main saloon and see if he's on the dock."

  After a few seconds, Rosario let out a sigh of relief. "Yes, he went out the gate and walked toward the parking lot. What do you want me to do?"

  "Nothing. Have Jan call me as soon as she gets back. We have more to worry about now than who tried to kill you. Now we have a guy who wants to kill me."

  Ricardo Lujàn, whom Jan and I had dubbed Dickless Richard after the smarmy cabrón told us, upon our making his sleazy acquaintance, that we could call him Richard, or Ricardo, but not to call him Dick.

  I've called him many things since then, none of them nice. Lujàn is in real estate. Stealing it, as best I can figure. And he tried doing serious harm to me and Jan the year before, but Jenks rode in on his white horse and saved the day by launching a Molotov cocktail at him and blowing up his boat.

  The last I saw of Dickless, we set him afloat in a leaky skiff.

  Last I heard of him, he still held a grudge.

  And now he had found me. Or at least my boat.

  17

  Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.—Erica Jong

  Jan called twenty minutes after my boat's security cameras spied Ricardo Dickless Luján skulking around Raymond Johnson.

  "Well, hell and damnation, Hetta. Ya know, Chino heard something about Lujàn moving his operations over here somewhere."

  "Over here, where? And didn't you think I should know this before I signed up for a job on this side of the peninsula?"

  "Oh, come on, Hetta, Baja's a big place. What are the odds? Just relax, we'll find out what he's up to."

  "Easy for you to say. It isn't you he wants to kill. And right now I'd like to kill you for not telling me that slimeball was in my neighborhood."

  Jan called Chino, told him about Lujàn's prowling and Chino said he'd get his cousins to ask around about what he was up to. And maybe why, other than wanting to kill me, he was lurking around my boat.

  I reported a prowler to the marina office, along with a copy of Luján's mugshot caught by my security camera. They promised to make sure the guards and all personnel stayed on the lookout for him.

  Meanwhile we went into a defense mode, with cameras rolling twenty-four hours a day and all doors locked at all times. It's times like this when I really, really miss my guns.

  After a couple of days on high alert, we needed a break.

  Poor Rosario couldn't even leave the boat for fear of being recognized, even with his new blonde do.

  Jan was obsessing over Chino's possible hanky panky.

  And me? I didn't even have a dog to feed and walk to take my mind off Dickless. I considered getting back into an exercise routine, if one can refer to something one never does routinely a routine, but was spooked about being seen on the streets of Santa Rosalia, now that Luján had been spotted in the vicinity. Or maybe I'm too lazy. Frustration had set in because I wasn't getting anywhere in my quest to find out who was stealing from what I now thought of as my project, and had probably tried to kill my Rosario.

  Yep, we all needed a break, so Saturday morning I declared a hiatus to our sleuthing and obsessing and we all took off for Camp Chino.

  Before we left I made Jan promise to leave the cutlery on the boat.

  Unfortunately Doctor Bombshell/Centerfold a.k.a Doctor Diane Powell lived up to her billing. It was obvious she was taken with Chino and followed him around like a puppy dog, which she did at her peril, since my puppy dog seemed determined to cut her off at every turn, even offering up a small growl and lip curl on occasion. He learned that part from Jan.

  Needless to say, the weekend was a tad tense what with Po Thang and Jan both snarling at Doc Di.

  "Well, at least Po Thang has a sense of loyalty," Jan sniffed. I guess she hadn't noticed that Po Thang, once he greeted Jan, went back to dogging Chino's every step. As for me, my own dog couldn't care less about me unless I had food in my hand, but at least he didn't grumble at me like he did Diane.

  "Chino's loyal too," I reminded her. "He's overjoyed that you're here."

  "We'll see."

  "Jan, I've never seen you jealous before. I kinda like it."

  She flipped her hair. "I am not jealous."

  "Are too."

  "Am not."

  "Then what would you call the way you're acting? You're treating Diane as an arch enemy when she's actually pretty darned nice. It isn't becoming, you know."

  Jan teared up and I wanted to kick myself. "Sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. Since when can I do that, anyhow?"

  "When you're right, which I hate."

  I reached over and patted her hand, which provoked a nose push from Po Thang who had deigned to join us since Chino went off to do some whale thing. "Yeah, yeah, dog. I know you like Jan more than me, but she's my best friend too."

  Jan sighed deeply. "Yes, we are best friends. More like sisters," she explained to Po Thang, who cocked his head and ears to her singsong doggy voice. "And that is why I want to warn you, right now. Should you decide to adopt her permanently, she eats all the good stuff."

  Po Thang gave me the squinty eye, which set Jan and me off. Chino, back from the sea, sidled up to our campfire chairs and plopped down next to Jan. He looked a little leery, as though our laughter might not be a good thing.

  "Mind if I join you?"

  Jan smiled and patted his knee. Po Thang nosed her hand away and Jan pushed back. "Watch it, mutt. Remember, you have to spend all day with me, every day. And Chino," she replaced her hand on his knee, "it's your camp. You don't have to ask if you can join us."

  "No, Jan, it is our camp and I miss you being here."

  "Oh, really? When? Before or after you've spent an entire day and half the night with your new assistant?"

  Well, mee-oow!

  I stood so fast my chair fell over backward. "Uh, I'll go get us a beer."

  Po Thang, since I was headed in the direction of the fridge, followed. "So you don't want to get involved either, you cowardly cur?"

  He gave me a woof.

  "Gimme five."

  Po Thang raised his paw and I shook it. "Well, welcome to the Coward's Club. I am the president."

  A raised voice cut through the night and we turned to see Jan and Chino, now standing nose to nose and throwing their arms around.

  "Po Thang, your friend Jan is screwing up big time. There is nothing worse than accusing a man of something before he does it, because then he probably will do it. Trust me, I know from experience."

  Chino, Diane and Rosario left in a panga early Sunday morning when one of the tour guides told them of a new calf in the lagoon. Jan demurred, still in a snit over the argument from the night before, I guess. I didn't want to leave her alone to stew, so I stayed in camp as well although I really wanted to go see that baby whale. A friend in need is a pest.

  I was on Skype, talking with Craig in Arizona about my alleged hate crime when Jan sauntered in with a plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, Po Thang in hot pursuit.

  She leaned into camera range and gave Craig a wave. "Hi, big guy. Hetta gonna go to jail?"

  Craig grinned. "Not if I can help it. At least not for this particular crime."

  "Hey, it's not like I have a list of crimes, you two. Craig, guess what? Jan's got a hot new rival and a little green monster is plaguing her."

  Jan harrumphed. "I am not jealous. Hetta's just being mean because her dog likes me better."

  "Children, children," Craig scolded. "Play nice. Now, tell me everything that's been going on. I know for sure you two can't stay out of hot water."

  We took turns telling Craig everything we knew to date about the project, Rosario, and Dickless's poking around the boat. When we were through, he frowned and shook his head. "I don't like it. You may be in over your heads this time. I think you need some more help down there."

  "You gonna ride in and save us, cowboy?"

  "Nah, way too much going on up here."

  "Who, then?"

  "How about Topaz S
awyer, that Sheriff's deputy who helped you out when you shot that skank in the balls. She might like a little Baja vacation."

  "Can she do that? Cross the border, her being law enforcement and all?"

  "I don't see why not. Long as no one down there knows she's a cop and she leaves her gun at home. Want me to call her?"